Innovation..for free

It has been a while since I have wanted to write about a great plug in for Firefox hardly known in the photo industry. It has a lot of advantages and no defaults. For one, it is free, two, it can be installed on any image library, three, it is incredibly helpful. One can quickly and nicely browse through a lot of image, increase the interesting ones and download the best.

Zymmetrical.com is the first and only agency to currently test it live on its site and starting to get user feedback. You can see a screen shot here:

They have also added a link on their website where one can test it.

This a great example of a company leveraging technology for what it can bring to the user experience.

The Piclens plug in has been around for quite a while and works with Google Images, for example. It has gotten great reviews by everyone that has approached it. It is cross platform, easy and simple to install and to use. It is an incredibly useful tool for the image industry .

Cool projects for your week end

Make a pinhole camera: Corbis, the company we love to pick on, has posted a really nice paper project for your week end. Called the ReadyCam, It is a set of instructions that let you build your own cool pinhole camera. Someone at Corbis marketing has brains. Try it here: ( click on any image)

Give yourself a face lift: Toronto ( again, the Canadians!!) based company ModiFace, Inc. just launched a website where you can make appropriate adjustments to see how you would look after plastic surgery on your face.

Founded in 2007 by University of Toronto professor Parham Aarabi, ModiFace Inc. utilizes advanced computer vision and image processing algorithms to visualize different facial operations including plastic surgery, facial aesthetic treatments and hairstyle changes. ModiFace’s patent-pending technologies empower consumers to redefine their images by automatically visualizing face enhancements, treatments and modifications.

You can redo you face, for free, here: liftmagic

Lost and found

March 5, 2008 by pmelcher.French photo agency Gamma, now under the umbrella of Eyedea,  recently lost a judgment for the lost of 9 210 originals. Catherine Leroy, Legendary war photographer, will receive 1,381,500 €  ( that is $ 2,108,909.49). About $228 dollars an image.

Catherine Leroy died in 2006 and was represented by her mother.

Yes, you have read this correctly. That is more than twice the price company Green Recovery paid  Hachette to purchase Gamma, Rapho, Hoaqui, Jacana, Explorer and Top last year. The purchase price was rumored  to be  € 600,000.00 or $900,000.00

Sipa has also been condemned to pay € 1,200,000 ( about $1,8 Million)   to photographer Gérard Gastaud for the lost of 43,331 of his originals. ( about $42.00 per image lost)

Apparently, if you are going to have your originals lost, you are better off moving to France first.

Seriously, however, neither agency would survive if they had to pay such penalty. Both are surviving right now and certainly cannot afford to part with more than $1 million dollar. Actually, besides Corbis, I do not know of any agency that could survive such a settlement.

I am all for compensating photographers whose images have been lost or mistreated. Especially legendary photographers like Catherine Leroy . However, I will question the intelligence of a judge who puts the settlement a such a high value that it endangers the jobs of 1,000’s of innocent people. Some common sense needs to also be applied here.

Both agencies have the right to appeal, which, in this case, I am sure they will certainly do.

More on these judgments here ( In French) : Photographie.com